With the untimely death of Sue Nott and her partner Karen McNeill on Mt. Foraker in 2006, The Club partnered with Mountain Hardwear to establish the McNeill-Nott Award in their memory.

The McNeill-Nott Award seeks to preserve the spirit of these two talented and courageous climbers by giving grants to amateur climbers exploring new routes or unclimbed peaks with small and lightweight teams. The Award focuses on projects that have strong exploratory and adventuresome mountaineering objectives. These elements are more important than the technical rating of the climbing objective.

Two or three grants totaling $5,000 are awarded annually to amateur teams that best meet the criteria for pursuing an exploratory objective.

What are we looking for?

A committee of three active climbers reviews the applications, selects the recipients, and decides the amount each recipient is awarded. Proposals are evaluated on the following criteria:

The remoteness and exploratory nature of the objective

Planned climbing style; lightweight teams preferred

Whether you have the experience needed for your objective

Application Deadlines:

Applications must be submitted by January 1 for expeditions departing within one year of grant being awarded. Winners will be announced by March 1.

How Do I Apply?

It's easy, just fill out the attached form as a PDF or Word Doc and submit it to grants@americanalpineclub.org.